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A summer of profound change is promised for Leafs under reframed Pelley-Treliving-Berube regime
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Photo credit: Dan Hamilton-USA TODAY Sports
Arun Srinivasan
May 29, 2025, 13:45 EDTUpdated: May 29, 2025, 14:18 EDT
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Radical disruption will rule the summer for the Toronto Maple Leafs. Incrementalism sailed out the door with Brendan Shanahan’s departure from the organization, and a three-headed regime featuring MLSE CEO Keith Pelley, Maple Leafs head coach Craig Berube and general manager Brad Treliving will oversee an offseason that will provide seismic changes, after the Core Four era expired following a seven-year term.
Treliving met with reporters Thursday to hold his end-of-year media availability, where he began to sketch the outline of his revisions, where it’s clear that the previous processes would not be tolerated.
“We have to find a way to push through at the most critical moments. And that’s the challenge in front of us. Moving forward, we have a good team. We’ve changed, we’ve changed a lot in the last 12 months,” Treliving said.
“There will be change moving forward, that’s just the nature of the business. We have to continue to change and evolve our mindset and create the team, both between the ears, personnel, to be our very best at the most critical moments. There’s some DNA that has to change on our team. If you keep getting to the same result, and that’s not to dismiss a lot of the good that led up to it, if you keep getting the same result, there’s some DNA that needs to change. That’s on me going forward, and our staff.”
What does this level of change look like, on a practical level? Mitch Marner is assuredly heading to free agency and while that almost certainly may be the correct pathway to seismic change, it also provides Treliving with a thinner margin of error in the offseason. Treliving stated that players like Marner don’t grow on hockey trees and there’s no real zero-sum equation that allows the Maple Leafs to equal the value of an 102-point player who plays plus defence during the regular season, especially during what’s considered to be a weak free agent market.
Treliving was clear that there won’t just be personnel changes, as the organization looks to become more agile. And in some respects, Treliving may have outlined the blueprint for what these type of sweeping amendments are on the horizon.
“I want to give a lot of credit to Florida,” Treliving said. “There’s a reason why they’re the champion. There’s a reason why they’re going back again for the third time. They’ve set the bar in our division and they’ve set the bar in our league. That’s what we aspire to.”
Treliving emphasized the importance of being good enough in critical moments, where the Leafs fell short. And if the onus was on Marner and Auston Matthews to elevate their games, does that mean that Marner’s seemingly imminent departure spells the transformation that all Leafs senior leaders have alluded to? Matthews and William Nylander are safe, John Tavares is widely expected to re-sign with the Maple Leafs on a contract agreeable to all parties, while Matthew Knies’ contract extension is a top priority for Treliving. Beyond Marner and Shanahan, where are the changes coming from?
If the idea is to reform the Maple Leafs into a version of the Panthers, it makes sense and the NHL is a copycat league after all. It just may be trickier than expected. If the Leafs sign both Sam Bennett and Aaron Ekblad this summer, which would constitute a massive victory for Treliving, would their collective impact outweigh the loss of Marner? This is the best-case scenario we’re discussing and the Maple Leafs will need to hit a home run on every one of their signings if they are to return a team that is similarly talented to the 2023-25 iterations of the club.
Berube and Treliving will be able to implement their vision of a physical, pragmatic, north-south hockey team entering 2025-26 with zero Kyle Dubas acolytes sticking around. Toronto will be returning seven defencemen under contract and it appears that Treliving is comfortable with the club surrendering possession in order to block shots and facilitate zone exits with some fluency.
At a governance level, the institutional weight falls squarely on Keith Pelley. MLSE has a name and face to answer to, as the multibillion-dollar entity often operated as a silent, amorphous partner during the past decade. The boss is awake and paying attention, and perhaps that constitutes a major change in their own right. In order for the Maple Leafs to eventually lift the Cup, there will need to be profound personnel changes as well and aside from Marner electing to use his right to test free agency, it doesn’t appear clear where the changes will be made.
Radical, franchise-altering change has been promised by all three principals of the Maple Leafs. And if the Panthers are the model to follow, it’s certainly worth noting that their trajectory changed when they traded Jonathan Huberdeau and Mackenzie Weegar for Matthew Tkachuk, the player who perhaps best embodies their fearless, no-holds-barred mantra over the past three years. It will be a turbulent offseason, the blueprint has been spelled out by the three-time Eastern Conference champion Florida Panthers, and while the team’s defence and goaltending corps are locked in, all the options are on the table for the new Pelley-Treliving-Berube regime.

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